Moving Right Along

I've been feeling a lot of anxiety lately. Oh, there are the obvious things - the looming deadline, the endless winter, the kids being sick, work, all the other commitments. But there's been something else, something that's really been weighing on my spirit. I just couldn't figure out what it was.

On Saturday, I went to a writer's workshop where we were asked to list, for ten minutes, any and all questions that popped into our heads. We then wrote on one of our questions for ten minutes.

My question, of course, was "Why am I feeling so anxious?" And I think I got my answer.

I've been spending the better part of my life engrossed in intellectual pursuits. I like to read, to write, to ponder. That was how I always defined myself, how I evaluated my worth - by the thinking I did. As I entered parenthood, I thought things could continue that way. If I read all the right books, had the right ideas, I would be a good parent.

What I found, though, was that I was spending a lot of time asking my kids to wait while I was thinking, reading, and researching about parenting. How the irony escaped me I don't know, but there it was - I was spending so much time thinking about parenting that I wasn't actually doing as much parenting as I would like.

I've decided to get out of my head and into my life - or to take a step towards that goal, at least. I'll be leaving this blog behind and moving on to a new one, more in line with my new goals for myself and my vision for my family. Ahimsa Mama will be more about what the day-to-day of Humane Parenting looks like, and less about lofty philosophizing about it. Sometimes there will be big issues to discuss, but mostly I am going to set the goal of sharing how I am trying to do it instead of how I think about it.

Check it out, please.